Avengers Forever #1-12 (December 1998 – February 2000)
Written by Kurt Busiek
Co-plotted by Roger Stern (#3-12)
Pencilled by Carlos Pacheco
Inked by Jesús Merino
Coloured by Steve Oliff
Spoilers (from twenty-one to twenty-three years ago)
When I first started writing these Retro Reviews series, I started reading my Avengers collection at the point where it became continuous. I really wanted to relive the Stern/Buscema days, but I was also interested in getting to Kurt Busiek’s run, which helped bring me back to reading Marvel comics in the late 90s after a few years of mostly staying away. I remember that Busiek and Pérez made the Avengers seem like a viable team again, after the twin disasters of The Crossing and Heroes Reborn. Contiguous with this run, Busiek wrote Avengers Forever, a side series that featured a time-lost group of heroes dealing with Kang the Conqueror.
I loved this book. It had wonderful Carlos Pacheco art, and gave prominent roles to Songbird and Genis-Vell, who was Captain Marvel at the time. I think it also introduced the Avengers of the 1950s, who would later be developed into the Agents of Atlas (but I could be wrong on that).
Kang has been a favourite villain of mine since the Stern/Buscema days (it’s weird how much I like his long purple boots), and seems to be the focus of the next round of Marvel movies. I figured this was as good a time as any to finish my Avengers re-reading (I covered West Coast and Solo Avengers not that long ago), and I can’t wait to see how this series stands up.
Let’s track who turned up in the title:
Avengers “Forever” lineup
- Giant-Man (Hank Pym; #1-8, 10-12)
- Wasp (Janet Van Dyne; #1-8, 10-12)
- Captain Marvel (Genis Mar-vell; #1-8, 10-12)
- Hawkeye (Clint Barton; #1-8, 10-12)
- Songbird (Melissa Gold; #1-8, 10-12)
- Captain America (Steve Rogers; #1-8, 10-12)
- Yellowjacket (Hank Pym; #1-8, 10-12)
Avengers (from various timelines)
- Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff; #1)
- Justice (Vance Astrovik; #1)
- Firestar (Angelica Jones; #1)
- Giant-Man (Hank Pym; #1)
- Captain America (Steve Rogers; #1)
- Iron Man (Tony Stark; #1)
- Beast (Hank McCoy; #1)
- Black Panther (T’Challa; #4-6)
- Jocasta (#4-6)
- Thundra (#4-6)
- The Crimson Dynamo (#4-6)
- The Living Lightning (#4-6)
- Killraven (#4-6)
- The 3-D Man (Hal; #4-5)
- Venus (#4-5)
- Gorilla-Man (#4-5)
- Marvel Boy (Bob; #4-5)
- The Living Robot (#4-5)
- Jack of Hearts (#12)
Villains
- Jonz Rickard (Commander, Galactic Avengers Battalion Theta-4; #1, 10)
- Galactic Avengers (#1, 10)
- Immortus (#1-3, 5, 7-8, 10-12)
- Tempus (#1, 3, 7)
- Martian Skorpsmen (#4-5)
- Skrull posing as Richard Nixon (#4-5)
- Space Phantoms (#5-6, 8)
- Time-Keepers (#10-12)
Guest Stars
- Time-Keepers (#1, 8)
- Wildrun (Anachronauts; #3)
- Kid Colt (#4, 6)
- Rawhide Kid (#4, 6)
- Two-Gun Kid (#4, 6)
- Night Rider (#6)
- The Ringo Kid (#6)
- Mourning Prey (#6)
Supporting Characters
- Rick Jones (#1-7, 9-12)
- Supreme Intelligence (#1-2, 9-12)
- Libra (Gustav Brandt; #1-4, 7, 11-12)
- Kang the Conqueror (#1-6, 9-12)
Let’s take a look at what happened in these books, with some commentary as we go:
- Avengers Forever opens with a prologue set in the twenty-sixth century, on a planet in the Beta Centauri system. A small group of Centaurians (think of Yondu, from the Guardians of the Galaxy) plan to steal some weapons in the hope they can use them against a tyrant who has subjugated their people. Time freezes across the whole planet before they can complete their mission, and some space vessels that look vaguely like quinjets arrive and stop bombing the place. There are groups of soldiers that look familiar – the Hammer-Troopers are clearly based on Thor, while the Repulsor-Troopers look like Iron Man, the Shieldsmen are based on Captain America, and the Micros-Swarm utilize Ant-Man style tech. They ravage 17% of the planet, and kill 34% of the population before time starts again, and the survivors are left to wonder what happened. The leader of these soldiers, Battalion Theta-4 of the Galactic Avengers, is a man named Jonz Rickard, who claims to be related to Emperor Rickard. He explains to the survivors that this damage was done because of the actions of the six Centaurians. Three figures, whom I vaguely remember and that the internet confirms are the Time-Keepers, are not happy with what they observe and teleport away. The actual story starts in the present (aka 1998), as the Avengers (Scarlet Witch, Iron Man, Captain America, Giant-Man, Firestar, and Justice) bring the badly injured Rick Jones to the Blue Area of the Moon, where SHIELD and Starcore have taken over the ruins. Rick recently collapsed after returning to the Avengers, and even with the help of Beast, Giant-Man and Iron Man struggled to help him. Tony is the one who figured out that there is an energy field in Rick’s cells, and that it is a match to the one he exhibited during the Kree-Skrull War. The Avengers take Rick to the Kree Supreme Intelligence, which is being held captive on the Moon by SHIELD. The Intelligence agrees to study Rick, but has to negotiate a little with Cap before he’s allowed to have access to Rick on his own. The Avengers leave, and a mysterious robed figure emerges; it’s clear that he and the SI have spent a lot of time together lately, something the guards aren’t aware of. The Intelligence believes that Rick has a lot to do with the future of humanity’s evolution, and the robed guy talks about balance. It becomes clear that the two of them manipulated things so that Rick would end up there. The Intelligence sends the robed guy to speak to someone. In Limbo, Immortus watches all of this. He freezes time on the Moon, and sends his servant Tempus, a big icey giant guy, to deal with Rick. Tempus starts to absorb Rick’s life force into his club, but then notices Rick starting to wake up. Kang the Conqueror has arrived and uses a time sphere to save Rick. Immortus insists to Kang that Jones has to die, but Kang disagrees, and instead kills Tempus. Immortus (remember, he and Kang are the same person) uses the pieces of Tempus to create an army of soldiers from different times. They attack Kang, who uses futuristic guns to kill them by the score. As Kang fights, Immortus works at shrinking his time sphere around Rick. Inside it, Rick wakes up, and is a little freaked out by all that’s happening around him. The Supreme Intelligence is able to move again, and views this moment as humanity’s turning point. The robed man returns and touches Rick, asking him to touch on the fabric of time to bring forth champions. There is a burst of light, and when it passes, we see seven figures from different moments in history – Giant-Man and Wasp, Hawkeye in his old Giant-Man gear (when he wore an outfit that left his stomach and lower chest bare), Yellowjacket, Captain America (during this time, Cap didn’t have his shield, but this one does), Songbird (who at this time was in the Thunderbolts), and Genis-Vell, also known as Captain Marvel. They are all surprised to be there.
- These newly arrived Avengers are disoriented, and are surprised when Kang calls on them to help him fight off Immortus’s endless army. Cap seems to hesitate the most, which disturbs Hawkeye, until Wasp takes charge and sends the heroes in to do battle. As they fight, we learn that Songbird and Captain Marvel know each other, and that Melissa recognizes this event as the start of something called “The Destiny War.” Giant-Man and Wasp start trying to figure things out, while Hawkeye reveals that he doesn’t have his gimmick arrows, just regular ones. Yellowjacket seems a little arrogant and maybe manic, which both Giant-Man and Wasp recognize as a problem. Captain America displays more than his usual strength, giving Jan a clue as to when he came from. Immortus appears to tell the heroes that they can’t stop him from shrinking Kang’s time bubble. Rick Jones starts floating, and uses his newly unlocked powers to push back against Immortus. Recognizing that he can’t win, Immortus withdraws and takes his army with him. Kang tells the Avengers to get Jones out of the timestream to protect him, and then he disappears too. Rick’s powers fade away, and he’s left crippled again (he’d taken a beating from the Hulk not too long before this series started). Jan has figured out that the Avengers come from different times, and is explaining that when the robed figure from before arrives and reveals his identity – it’s Libra, of the Zodiac. He wants them all to go with him, but Cap refuses. The Supreme Intelligence insists they go with him, and Libra leads them through some hidden passageways to a place outside the timestream. He explains how he went to prison as a way to leave the Zodiac, and has been learning about cosmic balance or something ever since. More recently, he faked his own death, and disputes Jan’s assertion that he recently resurfaced as a villain called Moonraker. Libra explains that Immortus is causing an imbalance in time, and that his plan to kill Rick, who is being carried by Giant-Man, would be a disaster for humanity, although Libra doesn’t know why. Libra believes that Rick chose these Avengers to come protect him for a reason, but doesn’t know what that is. Yellowjacket wants to fight Libra, but Jan stops them, and instead has the team talk about when they’ve come from. Yellowjacket arrived from right before his planned wedding to Jan, which means he’s a secretly deranged Hank Pym; this knowledge makes the other Hank very nervous. Songbird is from the future, and Clint from the point just after the Kree-Skrull war, when he briefly joined a carnival, explaining his lack of trick arrows. Genis is also from the future, and Rick is not too happy to realize who he is, given his own connections to Genis’s father. Jan and Hank are more or less from the present, but a little while after Rick was dropped off on the moon, which explains why Hank is wearing a different costume (the yellow and blue joint) from last issue. Cap, we learn, has arrived just after his fight with the Secret Empire, which shook his confidence and faith in America so much that he ended up dropping his persona and becoming Nomad. Jan assesses the team, and they try to figure out what they should do. Libra wants to follow Kang’s advice, but Rick wants to go figure out what’s happening. Libra agrees to take them to Kang’s stronghold, thinking it will be safe from Immortus, and they journey through different eras to get there, finding destruction along the way. When they reach Kang’s citadel, they find it under attack. Immortus’s large face appears in the sky, and he thanks them for coming straight to him. Libra thinks this has happened too quickly, and Rick feels like he’s screwed up.
- The Avengers react to this surprise, but then they’re spotted by Immortus’s forces and the fight is on. Cap takes Rick to cover while Genis, Melissa, and Hank fight the flying ships. Rick despairs at not being able to access his new powers. Jan shows Yellowjacket how much her sting has improved. The invaders pull back. Clint stops an arrow that was shot at Yellowjacket, and is surprised to learn it was shot by Red Wolf. He calls the others over, and by the time they come, he’s learned he’s standing over Wildrun, one of Red Wolf’s ancestors. Libra knows him, and Wildrun explains that the rest of the Anachronauts have started turning into temporal shadows. Kang has his slaves move a replica of his Sphinx/time travel machine. The Avengers approach him, and he thanks them for bringing Wildrun back to him, despite the fact that he told them to hide from Immortus, instead of running towards him. Jan argues with Kang, who explains that Immortus is after the Heart of Forever, a device that he owns, since he wasn’t able to kill Rick. He asks the Avengers to help him stand against Immortus, and they reluctantly agree. Yellowjacket puts the moves on Jan, and she suggests that all personal matters are off-limits until the situation is resolved. Clint talks to Melissa, who is not used to the fact that they don’t know each other. Genis can’t really access his cosmic awareness. Rick shows him his new battle wheelchair, and we learn that Genis joined the Avengers after the Destiny War, and isn’t sure if he’s from the same timeline as the rest. Jan talks to Cap about his doubts. Clint shows Hank the bow that Kang’s armorers gave him, but then the invaders return, and the Avengers head out to fight alongside Kang. Immortus’s forces are overwhelming. Clint finds it hard to use his new bow, which is so powerful it makes it hard not to kill anyone. Rick’s new chair is destroyed, and when an axe-wielding Norseman comes at him, he’s suddenly able to move his legs and kick the guy. Hank notices that Kang’s men are retreating into the citadel, and they fall back with them. Kang tells them to leave with Rick, and despite Jan’s objections, they follow Libra to the sphinx. Kang keeps fighting, but retreats into his citadel, where he is attacked by the restored Tempus. Immortus enters the room that holds the Heart of Forever, and pulls it out of the machine that houses it. When he does that, Kang’s city of Chronopolis, which exists in multiple times, begins to fall apart, except for the sphinx, which is in its own time bubble. Immortus has placed the chronal essence of everyone and everything in Chronopolis into the Heart, turning it into something he calls the Forever Crystal. He’s not happy to note that the Avengers’ essences are not in it, and makes plans to track them down.
- The Sphinx moves through the timestream, and the Avengers within it try to figure things out. Clint is fed up with Libra talking about balance, and strikes at him with his bow, which misses, but his punch does not. Libra decides it’s time to leave the Avengers to let them make their own way, and wanders off. Yellowjacket and Hank (I’m going to keep calling YJ by his costumed identity, since he doesn’t know he’s Hank Pym at this stage of the game) work out how to operate the sphinx (although YJ is annoyed that the older Hank is wiser than him), and Hank identifies three instances of temporal imbalance created by Immortus, and figures that the team should split up to check them out using the timeshuttles that Yellowjacket discovers. Jan splits them into teams – Hawkeye, Songbird, and Yellowjacket in one, with Clint leading, Hank and Cap in another, and she and Genis in the last. Rick is not happy to be left behind, although Hank and Jan have good reasons. After everyone’s left, he sits and talks to himself about how the situation is not fair. Hank and Steve find themselves on a ruined future Earth, where New York is being attacked by giant alien tripod vessels. Cap insists they help the people, and they wade into battle against the Skorpsmen. Cap is surprised to be assisted by someone, and they come across a future version of the Avengers, led by Black Panther. T’Challa takes off his mask and we see his hair is grey. The rest of the team is Jocasta (in a different body than we are used to), Thundra, The Crimson Dynamo, The Living Lightning, and Killraven. T’Challa realizes they are there as part of the Destiny War, and tells them they came in time for Earth’s last battle. Clint, Melissa, and YJ find themselves in Tombstone Arizona in the late 1800s. There’s a device in their shuttle that creates period (and gender) appropriate clothes for them, and Clint is excited to head into town. He almost immediately spots Kid Colt and Rawhide Kid, and gets excited (he is from the time before he first met them, I guess). They are joined by Two-Gun Kid who is warning them of townsfolk who are walking around like zombies. Kang makes an appearance, and summons a tyrannosaurus rex to come and take care of them. The three gunslingers take off, and Melissa has to stop the two Avengers from getting involved. Kang is planning on taking over the 20th century by conquering the 19th, and seems pleased with his plans. The Avengers return to the cave where they left their shuttle, knowing that the Avengers of another time would come to deal with this. The thing is, their shuttle is missing. Jan and Genis arrive in California in 1959, where they try to fit in by wearing period clothing. It’s the Fourth of July, and everyone is at a fairground, where VP Richard Nixon is set to appear. As Jan and Genis talk, they attract the attention of guys with communicator watches. Genis’s cosmic awareness tells him that Nixon is actually a Skrull, but Jan stops him from doing anything. They head to a secluded area to change into costume, and are found by a group of five costumed figures – Venus, Gorilla-Man, 3-D Man, Marvel Boy, and The Living Robot. Marvel Boy claims they are the Avengers, and they think that Jan and Genis want to attack Nixon.
- Rick watches the three away teams on monitors on the sphinx, wondering why they haven’t found any traces of Immortus yet. Cap and Giant-Man continue to fight with the Avengers of the future against the Martian Skorpsmen. During this pitched battle, we learn that Jocasta is pregnant (her husband, Machine Man is dead), and that the Martians have killed billions. The Panther’s team pushes them back to a ship, and the Martians flee Earth. The Avengers want to pursue them, but can’t, as they’ve scuttled the remaining ships. T’Challa, who explains that there are only about fifty thousand people left on Earth, wants to continue to hunt down and wipe out any remaining Martians. All this killing rattles Cap; Rick is sad to see him in such a depressed state. Rick turns his attention to Wasp and Captain Marvel, who are trying to explain themselves to the 1950s Avengers. 3-D Man doesn’t believe their story, suspecting that they work for communist China. A fight breaks out, until Venus is able to use her powers to distract Genis, allowing Living Robot to knock him down. Venus tries to subdue Wasp to ask her questions, and Jan explains that’s all she’s wanted all along. Our heroes tell the older heroes that Nixon is really a Skrull, and because Marvel Boy is scanning Jan’s mind, they believe her. Rick notices some weird readings around Hawkeye, Yellowjacket, and Songbird’s team, and turns his attention there. They look around the cave for clues as to who stole their timesphere, and find a holographic projection of Kang (the one who was trying to take over the 1870s, not the older version they were working with before). He doesn’t know them, and blows the ceiling of the cave they’re in, trapping them. Melissa is able to save them, and they try to figure out their next move. Yellowjacket hits on Melissa, and Clint confronts him about the fact that he’s really Hank Pym, which YJ blows off. They talk about heading into town to confront Kang, and that’s when they are joined by the Gunhawks – Black Rider, Reno Jones, and Kid Cassidy. Clint knows them as heroes, and keeps conflict from starting. Later, they share a fire and talk about their plans. As they talk, Clint figures out these aren’t the Gunhawks, since Kid Cassidy was dead by 1873. They capture them, and learn they are three different versions of the Space Phantom, who works for Immortus. In the 1950s, two FBI agents approach the Avengers and our heroes, and pull them aside to talk about the Skrull situation. Genis’s cosmic awareness is not working properly, because of Venus, but it reveals to him that the FBI agents are also the Space Phantom. The Avengers of that era fight them, but Rick appears as a floating head and tells Jan and Genis that they need to get out of there. At the same time, in front of the crowd at the fair, Nixon shakes hands with a general who is actually Immortus, and reveals that Nixon is a Skrull to everyone. As the crowd attacks the alien, Immortus uses the Forever Crystal to purge the timeline. As the 1950s Avengers begin to disappear into blankness, Genis and Jan flee back to their timesphere. They have seconds to launch a chronal jump, but the whiteness reaches their vessel with one second left to go.
- Jan and Genis barely make it back to the timestream, and as they maneuver towards the sphinx, they see some scenes from Immortus’s life (confronting Doctor Doom as Rama-Tut, doing something with the original Human Torch, officiating Vision and Scarlet Witch’s wedding, altering Thor’s hammer) appearing outside their sphere. When they join Rick on the sphinx, similar scenes of Immortus helping Vance Astro meet his younger self, meeting with the Badoon, and officiating Jocasta and Machine Man’s wedding are playing on the viewscreen. Genis thinks that escaping Immortus in the 1950s led to other Immortus-driven anomalies appearing. Captain America kneels in front of a statue honouring the original Avengers, surrounded by the wreckage of the war with the Martians. T’Challa comes to get him and Jocasta, and the Avengers take off in a ship, heading to Wakanda where they hope to make a fleet of spaceships to chase down and kill the Martians. Hank is curious to know about Jocasta’s pregnancy. When they land in Wakanda, they enter what is left of the mostly mined Vibranium Mound. Some sharp-winged yellow insects attack them, and the Avengers try to protect themselves. T’Challa releases a gas, and it draws out a human-sized butterfly woman who is the same colour as the insects. The gas affects Jocasta, and she goes into labour. Hank tries to clear the gas by clapping his hands, which blows most of the insects away. This drops the butterfly woman too, and as she recovers, she seems to entrance Cap. Rick, Genis, and Jan watch more scenes involving Immortus, including the time that Space Phantom worked with Grim Reaper, and discuss their surprise to learn that there is more than one Space Phantom, and that with his shape-shifting abilities, he could be anywhere. Outside Tombstone, Clint and Yellowjacket argue about who is in charge. Soon they, with Melissa, head towards town to get their chronosphere. Two-Gun Kid is holed up in his law office with Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt, Night Rider, and the Ringo Kid. They plan to confront Kang. Clint’s group has to walk through the mindless people that Kang has under his control, and they spot Two-Gun and his group approaching, and getting attacked by the townspeople. Kang reveals that his hotel is actually a futuristic citadel. Clint wants to help the gunslingers, but Melissa insists that things have to happen the way she knows they did, and leads them to the side of the citadel. She gets YJ to blast his way in, and it does seem suspicious how detailed her memory of the Avengers’ files is. The gunslingers are confronted by a giant gila-monster type thing. Melissa leads them right to the chronosphere, and seems more open than before to YJ’s advances. He surprises her and Clint by punching her across the face. Cap communes with the butterfly woman, and stops the others from hurting her. He has them listen as she communicates with them telepathically. Her name is Mourning Prey, and she shows them that she was rescued from a lab by Immortus and brought to Wakanda. The insects are her offspring, and they need the dwindling supply of vibranium to survive. At the same time, Jocasta experiences a problem with her delivery. The baby is causing her to vibrate dangerously, and the only way Hank can think of to save her is to use vibranium. Basically, T’Challa has to choose between vengeance and protecting these young lives. Clint confronts YJ, but he claims that Melissa is not who she seems to be. He zaps her, and she turns into a Space Phantom, which also causes the real Melissa to return from Limbo. Clint notices that YJ refers to events that happened when he was Giant-Man, and suspects he’s starting to remember his real identity. They leave in the chronosphere. Hank helps Jocasta deliver her synthezoid baby. Cap talks with T’Challa, who thinks that the way the vibranium was needed was a little convenient; he suspects Immortus set things up. Cap and Hank take their leave of T’Challa, and he’s left feeling hopeful. With everyone back in the sphinx, they watch the same Immortus scenes on the video monitor, and Cap worries that Immortus might have had something to do with the time the Space Phantom and Grim Reaper erased the world’s knowledge of his secret identity. The team is still trying to figure out what Immortus’s angle is when YJ hits on Melissa again. She hits him in the stomach and reveals that in her time, she is Jan’s best friend, and that Jan and Hank are married. Genis tries to refocus everyone on the issue of Immortus trying to alter history. This leads to Hank suggesting that they go straight to Limbo to learn more, or put a stop to him. Genis is worried, as he doesn’t want things to play out the way he knows they did in his past.
- Hank and YJ have worked together to take apart a chronosphere to make a device Hank can wear to help the team navigate a platform created by Melissa through time. As they prepare to sneak into Immortus’s base, Genis insists that Rick stay in the sphinx (without explaining why, it seems). As they fly through the timestream, they are again given glimpses of moments in the past, mostly focusing on Vision, the original Human Torch, and the question of their connection to one another. Hank sees himself claiming Vision was made of the Torch’s spare parts, but present day Hank realizes that couldn’t possibly be true, and wonders why he thought that. They also see Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Mantis being guided around by a talking stick – the synchro-staff. A final vision shows the original Avengers attacking Immortus and Captain America, but none of them remember that ever happening. They arrive in Limbo, where things are constantly shifting in appearance. Melissa guides them to Immortus’s fortress. YJ uses a device to try to track Immortus, but the inside of the fortress goes MC Escher on them, and they get separated. Clint finds himself in a room filled with statues of himself wearing past and potential future costumes. He’s attacked by Tempus. Cap finds himself locked in a medieval-looking dungeon, occupied by Nick Fury (as he appeared in the Second World War). Fury encourages him to give up on escaping and get comfortable. Jan can hear Hank, as he busts through some walls and tries to reach her, but she hears his voice in all directions, as dialogue he’s said to her over the years surrounds her like the insects we see buzzing around her head. Yellowjacket finds some monitors showing scenes from his life, and finally realizes, as similar insects surround him, that he really is Hank Pym. He’s very unhappy, because he doesn’t want to become Pym again; he decides to look for Immortus. Melissa is placed on trial by her loved ones, and made to feel like she’s abandoned everyone. Genis comes to her and tries to snap her out of it. Rick is angry being left behind, especially since he can’t see the team on his monitors anymore, so he decides to take a chronosphere on his own. Genis ends up kissing Melissa. Clint taps into his Goliath powers, and manages to smash Tempus. Fury shifts through different appearances from different eras, and as he tries to make Cap despair, he overplays his hand, so Cap (who also has insects around him) busts down a door to get back to his mission. We see that Fury was really Libra, working to restore balance. Melissa pushes Genis away, and he admits that in his future, they are together (they are also surrounded by bugs now). Yellowjacket finds Immortus sitting on his throne, and tries to attack him from above. Immortus captures him easily, and then sends a massive army after Hank, who reaches Jan. Realizing Immortus knows they’re there (I mean, I would have thought that would have been obvious by now), Jan calls the others to meet up where they entered. They fight their way to one another and head for their entry place, and then realize that Yellowjacket is missing. There is a brief debate, but they know they have to retreat and leave him behind. They flash back to the sphinx and immediately know that Rick is missing. Clint shows them that he stole something – Immortus’s synchro-staff. In Limbo, Yellowjacket offers to help Immortus, in return for being able to stay in this personality, and to get the girl.
- Issue eight is a big info-dump issue. Clint is trying to get the synchro-staff to start talking, while the others discuss the fact that Genis won’t tell them what he knows of the Destiny War, and that Melissa doesn’t know much at all. When Clint threatens to break the staff in two, it screams and turns into a Space Phantom. They capture him in one of Melissa’s sound bands, and begin to interrogate him. He shares that after Immortus set up shop in Limbo, he was visited by the Time-Keepers, who put him in charge of seventy centuries of time, and he employed the Space Phantoms to help him. The Space Phantom, who is the first one the Avengers met, explains that anyone who turns up in Limbo turns into a Space Phantom, and that Immortus has altered them to be useful; for example, when they assume a form on a mission, they lose access to their other memories. The Space Phantom recaps his first meeting with the Avengers. He then explains how after that, Immortus worked with Baron Zemo in an early Avengers case, but afterwards, Enchantress erased that from the timeline. After this, Immortus decided to keep an eye on the Avengers, even though the Time-Keepers had told him to destroy them. We learn that Immortus fooled Thor as a way of drawing the time travel abilities out of Mjolnir. When Immortus learned of the team’s involvement in the Kree-Skrull War, from the Time-Keepers, he was upset, especially since the powers that Rick Jones developed there were exactly what he was supposed to stop. He convinced them it was fine still, and that’s when he first learned of the future we saw in issue one, where the Avengers became a galactic army. The Space Phantom explains that humanity is considered the most dangerous race in the universe. Hank asks why Immortus was always so interested in the Scarlet Witch, and SP explains that it’s because her children have the potential to destroy the cosmos. We learn that Immortus subtly influenced events so that Vision and Scarlet Witch fell in love and got married, figuring that would stop Wanda from procreating. After they did have kids, aided by magic, Immortus dug into the whole Mephisto/Master Pandemonium connection, and then disguised himself as the version of Phineas T. Horton seen in John Byrne’s Avengers West Coast run, when the Vision was dismantled by the government (this news upsets Cap a lot). Genis uses the sphinx’s computers to show how Immortus got involved in the story of the original Human Torch, splitting time into two simultaneous timelines existing in the same Earth, which explains some obscure continuity issues around that character and his connections to Vision. Next, we learn that Immortus was upset when the Avengers got involved in the war between the Kree and Shi’ar (we know this as Operation: Galactic Storm). Immortus was responsible for Iron Man’s uncharacteristic behaviour during that event, which led to a schism in the team, and the Black Knight “executing” the Supreme Intelligence. This led to another visit from the Time-Keepers, who showed him a future where Deathcry convinced the Avengers to fight the Shi’ar to free the Kree, but then they had to occupy Kree space to continue protecting them, leading to an Interstellar Avengers Corp. Immortus asked the Time-Keepers for another chance to fix things, and that led to him distracting the Avengers until Onslaught came along, and his continuing to influence Iron Man. Immortus pretended to be Kang, and had a complicated plan that led to Iron Man trashing the team (is this a Heroes Reborn thing? Or is this The Crossing? I’m lost now) and blaming Hawkeye for murder. Iron Man was killed and replaced by another Tony Stark. Cap gets the Space Phantom to stop talking. Hank asks if Immortus caused his breakdown, but SP claims that was always going to happen. Now we understand why Immortus wants to kill Rick, which might actually be done to rescue everyone. We see one of the Limbo bugs approach the group, and Genis yells out a warning too late. The whole group is zapped by Yellowjacket and Immortus. Immortus promises to give him what he wants, assuming they can save humanity first.
- It’s another big info-dump issue! Kang is in his retreat in a dimension that’s a form of purgatory. He’s reflecting on his recent defeat, and listens to his recorded autobiography, feeling tired. We see Kang’s origin as a bored person in the far future who discovered a possible ancestry in either Victor Von Doom or Nathaniel Richards, and upon discovering the remains of Doom’s time machine, rebuilt it into a statue of the sphinx. Calling himself Rama-Tut, he took over ancient Egypt, until a meeting with the Fantastic Four derailed his plans. It’s too much to go over everything mentioned in this issue, which I think attempts to make a unified history of every Kang appearance ever. We see Rama-Tut lie to Doom, then splinter off into the Scarlet Centurion in another reality. He ended up taking on the mantle of Kang and discovering his penchant for conquest, which led to a fight with the Avengers a few times. He fell for Ravonna, the daughter of one of his vassal kings. She died saving Kang from his father, and once he discovered Immortus’s citadel (and his body, which he didn’t know was his), he brought Ravonna back. This created many different timelines, and he learned of the activities of all of these different Kangs. Eventually, he brought them together into a Council of Kangs, so he could kill them all. Immortus intervened (Ravonna was working with him), and Kang ended up absorbing the memories of his other selves, which almost drove him mad. There were other Kangs, and other conflicts with the Fantastic Four (this is getting pretty textbook-ish). As Kang conquered more ground, he became too involved in the day-to-day operations of his holdings, and after some more intrigue involving Doom and Thor, decided to return to simpler days. He became Rama-Tut again, took over Egypt again, fought the Avengers again, and then fought his younger self in a bizarre act of hubris. He saw chrono-flashes that showed Immortus agreeing to work for the Time-Keepers, and that set him off to change his destiny. He returned to Ravonna, checked on other time-related entities (including the Time Variance Authority, and started to work against them. He destroyed the mechanism that he used to transfer his consciousness to other bodies when killed, and set about learning how to foil Immortus’s plans. He learned about the Supreme Intelligence and Libra, and then decided to take the course of action we’ve seen throughout this series. Now, Kang is called by the Supreme Intelligence. When he arrives at his chamber on the Moon, he’s greeted by Rick Jones, who lets him know the Avengers were captured. Kang agrees to help Rick and the SI to take out Immortus and the Time-Keepers.
- The Avengers come to, and not knowing where they are, open a door to find themselves facing hundreds of the soldiers of the Galactic Avengers (we see new versions, based on Vision and Hawkeye as well as the familiar types). When Hank tries to explain that they are challenging the very people they are modeled on, Genis gets a flash of cosmic awareness to discover the GA actually sees the Guardians of the Galaxy (the original, futuristic version). A fight ensues, and as the Avengers find themselves overwhelmed by their inferior enemy’s superior numbers, and are captured in energy nets, Jan tapes into some kind of cosmic power that is then shared briefly by the others. They are suddenly brought down by a blast from Legion-Master Jonz Rickard, whom Cap immediately recognizes as a descendent of Rick Jones. Rickard orders they be locked up until they can be executed, and they are fitted with collars that inhibit their powers. They are left alone in a room, and are surprised to see Yellowjacket enter, carrying Cap’s shield and Clint’s bow. He tells them he’s working for Immortus now, and we see Immortus’s head order the Avengers to come help him with an important matter. YJ reveals that he has figured out how to use the Limbo bugs, which is what made the Galactic Avengers think they were the Guardians. They walk through a portal to join Immortus in the hall of the Time-Keepers. Those large figures talk about their role in existence, and how they came to be, acknowledging that in other realities, they became malignant Time-Twisters. They start to explain that humanity is the greatest threat there is, and we learn from Immortus how he’s worked to keep mankind on Earth, erasing other timestreams where they get out of hand, or manipulating events. Immortus wants these Avengers to work with him (it’s acknowledged that he and YJ dumped them on the GA to show the threat). The Time-Keepers mention that humans are the only race that managed to defy Galactus and the Celestials, as well as the Infinites (in a story that hadn’t happened yet, aside from in Genis’s time). The Tiime-Keepers want to cull most timelines to keep only enough to continue the universe’s existence, but those will all be curated to keep humanity in check. The Avengers, including Yellowjacket, object to this approach, and the Time-Keepers assure him that he’ll still get what he wants. Cap asks what percentage of timelines show humanity is a threat, and is surprised that the number is only 42%. Hank asks why the Time-Keepers don’t apply the same logic to themselves, given that they are sometimes Time-Twisters. As they argue, Yellowjacket decides to act, triggering the Destiny Force in the Avengers and handing Cap his shield. Immortus tries to stop them, but Hank grows bigger than the Keepers. They, in turn, grow bigger than him. Immortus pleads that they stop their actions in order to survive, but the team unites in its opposition. That’s when a portal opens, and YJ tells Cap he called for help. Rick Jones drives a big Kirby-esque supreme-cycle through the portal. Kang and the Supreme Intelligence are with him.
- Rick and his backup give the team the chance they’re looking for. No one notices Libra watching from a corner as the Avengers try to fight their way through the Time-Keepers’ forcefield. Libra thinks about his own role in this struggle, and how he enabled Rick to choose each Avenger from different eras. Libra recognizes that Cap’s uncertainty and Yellowjacket’s arrogance were needed, as was Jan’s confidence, Hank’s support, Clint’s loyalty, but also his ability to irritate YJ, and Melissa’s closeness to the others, even if they didn’t know that. Genis was needed for his attempts to alter the outcomes. Rick and Kang communicate with the Supreme Intelligence, trying to modulate their weapons so they can be more effective. The Time-Keepers grab Immortus and flee. Kang is pleased to learn that YJ planted a Limbo bug on Immortus, and can track him. They leave on the Supreme Cycle, as does Libra. They track the Time-Keepers to the end of time, and the place of their creation. The Supreme Intelligence makes it clear that the Keepers are not god. The Time-Keepers prepare to reorder all of time, but need Immortus’s Forever Crystal. He’s reluctant to help them, wanting to continue to look after the Avengers. That’s when the team arrives, and again starts pounding on the Keepers’ shield. When Immortus won’t give over the crystal, the Keepers kill him, a moment which freaks Kang out. The Keepers calibrate their chrono-cannon, and to keep the Avengers from breaking through to them, bring forth dozens of evil versions of the Avengers from the various timelines where they went bad. The team fights, but is badly outnumbered. Libra appears to the Supreme Intelligence, who convinces Libra to get into the fight, using the martial arts he learned from the priests of Pama. Once he touches Rick, he awakens the Destiny Force in him, which then spreads to the other Avengers, giving them the advantage. It’s worth noting that Genis did not get to tap into this power, because he’s not a human. Rick seems to be enjoying himself, at least until the Time-Keepers capture Libra, and use his abilities to freeze all of the Avengers. They turn to Kang, who is not frozen, and explain that they want to punish him, but can’t kill him, since they need him to turn into Immortus some day. They decide to transform him now, which he resists. The frozen Avengers are able to talk, but not move. Genis, however, is able to bring his nega-bands together, which turns him into an older, one-armed version of Rick, which shocks our Rick. As Kang still writhes, the Avengers and the Ricks start fighting again. Once the two Ricks share their ability to access the Destiny Force, they bring forward a massive army of good Avengers, from a variety of realities, to help them out.
- Jan leads the multiversal good Avengers into battle with the evil ones, and we get some incredibly busy double-splash pages showing just what the Destiny War looked like. Our main Avengers are at the centre of the fight, near the Time-Keepers and their Chrono-cannon. Old Rick exhorts Young Rick to keep fighting, and to spread the Destiny Force across their allies. Kang keeps fighting the change the Keepers are placing on him. When Libra makes a move, one Keeper blasts him, and the Supreme Intelligence tells him there’s nothing he can do. Old Rick tells Rick that things might be tough for a while, and then hits his nega-bands together, bringing Genis back. Genis knows what to do, and tells Rick to go hide somewhere before wading into the fight. Melissa comments on how calm Genis seems, as he explains that he’s accepted what’s going to happen next. Kang keeps fighting the transformation, and somehow rips himself out of the situation, restoring himself and causing the Keepers pain. They call a bunch of their evil Avengers to protect them, while our squad comes towards them. Their cannon is ready to fire, but just as it is triggered, Rick jumps in front of it, using the Destiny Force to stop it from ripping apart time. The backlash blows up the cannon, but Rick lies on the ground close to death. Kang confronts the Keepers, explaining to them that they were never the gods they thought they were. He unloads his weapons into them, and goes to retrieve the Forever Crystal. Cap is holding it though, and it gives him glimpses into a number of historical wrongs he could correct (saving Rick, saving Bucky, stopping Hitler, and stopping the Secret Empire). He realizes that the crystal is too powerful, and using his enhanced strength, he crushes it. This causes all of the other Avengers to disappear back to their own times and worlds. Kang is furious, and is interrupted by a child who grows to adulthood in front of them. Somehow, Immortus broke away from Kang, and now they are separate beings, instead of the same being from different times (kind of like how the original Human Torch is also the Vision). Immortus explains that the crystal will reform at some time and place. Libra helps explain what all is happening. Immortus leaves, and then so does Kang. The Avengers focus their attention on Rick, who is barely clinging to life. Genis appeals to the Supreme Intelligence to do something, and then says goodbye to Songbird. He steps into Rick, and disappears. Rick wakes up. Cap talks about how the Avengers need to make sure humanity doesn’t become the threat the Time-Keepers feared it would be, and debates the Intelligence on that. Libra feels that “balance” is restored, and prepares to send everyone home. Yellowjacket is worried that he won’t retain his memory of this, and Libra explains that they will have the memories they need. Songbird returns to Avengers Mansion where Wasp and Jack of Hearts meet her; she tells them she was at the Destiny War, but is already beginning to forget it (here’s a thought – if they all forget it, how does Melissa know about it in the first place?). Yellowjacket returns to his wedding. Clint is in a bar in Belgrade with Hercules, and calls a friend to help them get home. Cap returns to the Oval Office, and the corpse of the Secret Empire operative who it was always suggested was Richard Nixon. Rick returns to the then-present day with Jan and Hank, and is surprised to find himself wearing the nega-bands. When he hits them together, he is replaced by Genis, wearing his 90s costume. He’s confused, and with a sudden flash, he finds himself in the much better costume we’ve seen him wear in this series. He and Rick figure out that they are bonded now, and Genis flies off, furious. On the moon, the Supreme Intelligence speaks with Libra, and after he leaves, we see he has the Forever Crystal.
This series isn’t really how I remembered it, but with the possible exception of the two deep-dives into Immortus’s and Kang’s histories, I really enjoyed it. Busiek’s Avengers run was a high water mark at Marvel as the 90s became the 00s, and this side story is a gem.
What really made this work was the way he took Avengers from different eras, including two Hank Pyms, so that the characters aren’t fully familiar or comfortable with one another or their situation. Adding Songbird to the team was a cool idea, given that Busiek was writing her in Thunderbolts at the time, allowing him to signal that he had big plans for her future.
The use of Captain Marvel is also pretty unique. I’d forgotten that Genis’s much cooler look debuted in this series, and had also forgotten that this helped launch his monthly series. I really need to read that book – I think I only own a couple of issues (the Micronauts guest starred). I have no idea why I wasn’t reading it at the time, because it always looked cool. Partly, I think it’s because I’ve always been a little annoyed by Rick Jones.
Busiek found time and space in this book to do a few things. He helped build up older versions of characters like Captain America and Hawkeye, and continued the multi-decade mission (I suspect that Roger Stern is the reason for this) of making the Wasp a believable and formidable leader.
I’d forgotten that Roger Stern was brought in as a co-plotter starting with the third issue, but after he came aboard, the focus on past continuity continued to grow, and that is something that Stern has always been excellent at. When I think about classic Avengers runs, I think that Stern and Busiek are at the top of the list. Stern’s run ruled through the 1980s, and Busiek was the bridge between the 90s and 00s, before Brian Michael Bendis took over the franchise for what feels like more than a decade.
The dives into Immortus and Kang were a little dull, but probably necessary, especially if you consider that one point of this book was to clean up aspects of the Avengers’ continuity that had become too complicated or confusing. I like how we got what is basically a unified theory of Kang, and that the confusing aspects of the Vision’s history were clarified (even though he had next to nothing to do with this book).
One thing I thought interesting was how many characters previewed to become Avengers, like Jack of Hearts and Spider-Woman, later on ended up joining the team, at least briefly, in runs by writers other than Kurt Busiek.
My biggest takeaway from this miniseries, though, is that the team of Carlos Pacheco and Jesús Merino are criminally underrated. This series doesn’t have a single bad page in it. Pacheco’s pencils are so clean, and his figures lean and heroic. Pacheco and Merino are as good at characters’ faces during long conversations as they are at drawing incredible two-page spreads of battle scenes that feature dozens of characters. Pacheco’s style was such a welcome antidote to the scratchy, over-dramatized art of the previous years, and I just thought that things in this book looked so good. Pacheco’s design (I assume) for Captain Marvel is such a great updating of the original Mar-Vell’s look.
I love how coordinated the team looked in this book. There are so many yellows, blues, and reds on all of these characters, and no one who really clashed. I think that’s why Clint is in this weird carnival outfit the whole time, instead of in his classic purple suit.
I also want to take a minute to discuss how much I love Kang’s look. I think he’s one of the coolest looking villains in comics, with his gigantic boots and often flowing top, yet he comes off as hyper-masciline. In the big gun era of comics, few could pull off weird future weaponry like Pacheco on Kang.
I’m really glad that I dug this series out. It got a little too deep into the continuity porn in the middle, but had a solid beginning and ending, and provided the type of Avengers story I really miss.
Next time around, I’m going to look at another oddball series that spun-off a massively popular team book, featuring a character whose costume I’ve loved since I first saw it.
If you’d like to see the archives of all of my retro review columns, click here.
